Remy & Pip
All melded together
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
Something reverberated
2021
Digital print zine
Edition of 40
The Seventh Annual Hallozeen Spooky Zine Extravaganza, online and at the Mission to Seafarers, may be over, but you can still purchase editions of the pocket-sized Something reverberated through our online store.
The entire edition of Bats aren’t scary flew, suitably, to new homes at Hallozeen, and we are looking forward to making more zines and artists’ books which require similar hand-cutting and the notion of wrapping, like Dip and bob. Maybe something sparked by the “slow-moving, gentle scavenger” of a Giant Japanese spider crab in the museum.
Remy continues to grow, develop, flap, and delight. It is wonderful to think that, should all go to plan, he’ll be flying with the Yarra Bend colony, possibly soaring over the rooftop of our house at night, in search of nectar, blossom, and fruit of over 200 different plants.
At present, he has a different experience. Listening to Rebecca Solnit in conversation with Kamila Shamsie; Richard Mabey, live from Selborne Village Hall; and Clare Shaw’s Carbon Landscape Poems, recorded in Little Woolden Moss, because “Your part might be small / but it could be pivotal.”
And our walks, our time with Remy, and our zines, like Something reverberated, are becoming one interconnected glow. Fuzzy like the colour green. A warm haze, is how I see it. From observational circuits at Werribee Gorge to Lake Wendouree in the admiration of swans, we don’t want to let slip our daily lockdown walks. It is a pattern to keep and extend.
Yes, our walks and our works are becoming an expression of the same thing.
We have set up the outdoor flight aviary for Remy so he can enjoy the sunshine, be ‘of the sky’, as he starts to flex those spectacular flight muscles. Colony bound, sort of, but still with a little way to go.
And now he also has a friend, a fellow orphan of similar age. Together they can ‘bat chat’ and learn.
We’ve named her Pip. Car Park Pip Squeak. Found in a small island of tallish trees in the car park nearest to the Bellbird Park colony at Yarra Bend. We heard her cry and ‘squeak’ for her mum, and then we saw other bats come to check if it was their little one, before flying off. (Can you see her up high in the tree, some 8-metres tall?)
She is a recent rescue, thanks to the watchful and dedicated eyes of Friends of Bats and Bushcare, and Bat Rescue Bayside. Once it was observed that their mum wasn’t coming back for them, thanks to the MFB with their cherry picker, and the aid of a long pole with a net to scoop up the distressed little one, she was safely rescued.
Pip was dehydrated and very cold, and spent the night in the loving and highly skilled care of Bat Rescue Bayside, where she was stabilised before coming into our hands.
She’s one week older than Remy, with lovely thick, dark fur. They chatter away to one another on the airer if one calls out. It’s lovely to see them figuring things out, and seeing Pip become calmer the more she trusts us.
Tonight they will try their first pieces of steamed apple. A little “bat lolly” that some sniff and turn their noses up at; others take the fruit and hold it in their mouth, unsure what to do next; and others suck, chew, and then spit it out. Who knows what Remy and Pip will do.
Keep an eye on our Reels for more adventures of Remy and Pip in their fleecy pyjamas. Making their way back to the wild.
As ever, please contact Bev Brown of Bat Rescue Bayside if you find an injured bat.
Please note: you need to be a qualified, vaccinated carer to handle bats.
Image credit: Charles Reginald Aston, Tree Branches (detail), 1852–1908. “Aston came from Birmingham and trained as an architect before turning to landscape painting. He traveled in Britain and to Italy to seek subjects exhibited at the Royal Academy and Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours in London, and joined the latter in 1882. In this study, closely observed bark, moss and foliage convey a reverence for nature which, together with the artful placement of the branches, suggests an admiration for John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites.” Watercolor over graphite in the collection of The Met.
